Gluten-free Gourmand

Teff Basics The first thing you need to know about teff is that it's a wild card, but only in the best possible way.  Unlike other gluten-free grains, teff is the most flexible GF grain for baking, and it's also the most variable grain I've ever worked with for flavor.  Nutty, earthy, sour, sweet, spicy, and mild are all flavors that I've gotten from teff bread.  I'm still not always sure how to control the flavor, I'm just along for the ride. Teff is one of the world's tiniest grains and has been used in sourdough bread for as long as 40,000 years.  (See this recipe for traditional injera flatbread .)  It comes in two main varieities in the USA, brown and ivory, though many other varieties exist.  It comes originally from Africa. However, Idaho seems to have a climate conducive to growing it, so that is where much of the teff is grown here in the USA.  Bob's Red Mill , Maskal and Judee's are the three brands I buy. (I've included affiliate lin

It's one of the first things you learn when you start trying to bake gluten-free: use a blend of different flours.  No single flour can work.  Especially for bread. I based all my baking on this principle for years.  More like 1.5 decades.  Then this year, for the very first time, I asked myself: why?  And to single flours: why not?  Thus were born many, many little baby loaves of single flour gf bread. No surprise that it didn't work for everything.  Glutinous rice flour? No way. The surprise was that it did work for almost  everything. 100% Cassava flour.   100% Oat flour. 100% White rice flour.   100% Brown rice flour. 100% Buckwheat flour. Then, the other surprise that shouldn't have been a surprise.  My favored grains were the best of the bunch. 100% Teff flour (this one is sourdough, the rest are yeasted). 100% Sorghum flour.   100% Millet flour. There is a method to my madness.  This whole experiment was made possible courtesy of psyllium husk.  It's my not-so-s

This recipe was made to evoke the dark, earthy flavors of rye bread, but without the gluten.    This flour blend was developed specifically for this recipe.  Here’s what each flour brings to the table. Brown teff - dark in color and complex in flavor, teff also gives bread a spongy and springy texture and helps with structure due to its high amount of protein and fiber. Ivory teff is a direct substitute for brown teff. Dark Buckwheat - this buckwheat is ground from the unhulled buckwheat groat.  It’s very high in fiber and protein.  It adds structure but it’s also very dense.  It adds a good whole-grain texture to the blend as well as darkening the color considerably. The flavor is intense and a little bitter. It balances out the sponginess of the teff by being a little dry when baked. If you would like to substitute with light buckwheat, my guess is that you'd have to reduce the total water by about 20g. Sorghum - this is a widely available grain that adds structure, f

This bread came out exactly how I wanted it to: a caramelized, crisp, thin crust, a soft, open crumb with thin cell walls, and a light golden color that makes you think of butter.  I've been working toward this bread a long time but it was really so simple.  Just a few of the best flours blended just so, some sourdough starter at its peak, psyllium and salt.  I added a little sugar for a better rise and a darker crust.   I gave a piece of this bread to my husband to taste, and he said, "This is good.  It has a good mouth feel and good flavor.  It tastes like bread."  My husband eats gluten so that's a high compliment.   This recipe is one of the simplest gluten-free sourdough recipes because it only calls for three flours: ivory teff, millet, and tapioca starch.  It's also the fastest and easiest sourdough recipe I have created, and you can make it same day.  It is not a sour loaf, but instead has a lot of complex yeast flavors.  It has a light color and texture e

  White sandwich bread is an American household staple.  It's one of those things people miss after going gluten free, even if they never really thought much about it when they ate gluten.  It's one of those things people just take for granted, and sometimes a person just wants a simple grilled cheese on white bread or a slice of toast with butter. There are many debates about the best GF white sandwich bread.  Many of them have gums or other binders that give them a strange texture.  Most have rice flour, which is great because it's inexpensive and widely available, but it has its own problems with texture.  It holds on to water longer than other grains, so it takes forever to bake and it often contributes to gumminess.   Here is my contribution to the white sandwich bread recipes of the world.  As a bonus, it's also grain-free, using a mix of pseudo-cereals and tuber flours.  It also has a few extra attributes that are difficult to come by in the world of gluten-free

I gave up on producing a showy loaf a long time ago.  I always rolled my eyes a little when I saw photos online of perfect bloom or wide-open crumb.  "The mustard is going to just fall right through," I would think to my self disapprovingly, shaking my head a little. It turns out, I was just jealous. After a decade of gluten-free bread baking and recipe development, and through a collaboration with some other bakers, I've come up with a gf sourdough bread recipe that produces an open crumb, a large bloom, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, an ear.   The bread has a very mild, pleasant sourdough flavor and is very light in color. The crumb is very open but not too delicate.  It has a chewiness to the texture that I associate with a good sourdough bread.  The crust gets a nice browning and it toasts up nicely. And I don't mind the mustard falling through as much as I thought I would. Many thanks to Michael Hollesen who came up with the original version of this recipe.  We